If you have followed the fieldwork scene for some time, you might have noticed that archaeologists who work in ancient cities around the world often keenly return to the same site year after year, decade after decade. Tourists and locals may take it as a testimony to the loveliness of the localities, or think of ongoing fieldwork as a kind of summer holiday for archaeologists. Administrators, funding bodies, and other gatekeepers are likely to tear their hair out after years funding expensive fieldwork campaigns. Surely, if you have already spent five or six, or even more than 20 field seasons scrutinising a site, chances must be fading that yet another season will dramatically change the outcome?
Some blame the Howard Carter syndrome: the stick-in-the-mud belief that the next season will bring about a long-sought revelation. Yet something different is at work here. When an ancient civilisation has left behind heritage on the scale of a city, comprehensive understanding does not come easy. It takes time just to get the basics right.
Someone who knows this is Mark Lehner. Admittedly, the site he works at is one that would daunt many. Since the early 1970s, he has directed excavations and surveys at the Giza pyramids. In 2017, he presented an overview of the results in the magnificent Giza and the Pyramids, co-written with long-term collaborator Zahi Hawass (CWA 86). Yet the work continues to unfold. To keep up with the latest news, you need to sign up for AERAGRAM, the biannual bulletin of the Ancient Egypt Research Associates, where Lehner treats subscribers to the most recent discoveries.
